Some of the dwarves who didn't get a look in for this film - all bar Thorin, Balin, Fili and Kili will i am assuming more attention in the next two films. Certainly one would expect Bombur to get more attention when they journey through Mirkwood bringing his character to life.

To be honest they should do as they are expanding upon the book and trying to add characterisation. Many feel this was achieved for the dwarves they focused on.

This one criticism rings most true to me, aside from those about major changes to the history of the legendarium itself.
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I don't agree about the look of the dwarves. Aside from the axe in Bifur's head, the fact that Dwalin and Bombur have large bald areas when Dwarves do not suffer from pattern balding (the books say so, really), and the fact that Dwalin's beard was not some shade of blue, when it should have been (at least blue-gray!), I had no problem with the look of the Dwarves. I find I rather liked it actually.

The Acting at The Council was also well done, in my accounting. Some of the dynamics were wrong, as was some of the information. The history of Arnor and Angmar were badly garbled, and while some of the scenes between Galadriel and Gandalf were touching and magnificent, yet at other points they portrayed her too much like his employer. All wrong that.

But this last bit about the humour. YES! Some of it I can let go, for the sake of the kids. Let's say the chips, the green food, and the fact that Bilbo was used for a handkerchief (MINUS the excess of CG mucus that was SO superflously added in absolute poor taste) could have stayed for their humour. But the rest was crass and tasteless in it's excess, and it damaged scenes that would have worked well without it. Peter does do things in bad taste, and it is not charming or endearing when he insists on doing so. I disagree, however, that the movie fails as fairytale. For one thing, children have a far greater capacity for wonder than virtually anyone over the age of 12, and a greater capacity to find it than I think you give them credit for. A lot of kids really enjoyed this movie (shame Peter went so graphic with Thror.. . ). In terms of fairytale wonder, it may well exceed films like Willow, and while some may compare some of its scenes to the likes of The Goonies with intended derision, it would be well to remember that those films (Willow, Goonies, Return of The Jedi etc.) endeared themsleves indelibly to millions of young people, who have loved them for a lifetime going forward. There was lots of Fairytale charm in The Hobbit, from The Unexpected Party to the introduction of the Wizard Radagast in his Enchanted forest. I wish Peter had left off with the stupid eye rolling gags that diminished the forest Wizard's scene, but the scene itself was not void of wonder.

Yet, in the main, I agree with your point that the film suffers when Peter tries to substitute whimsy and simple charm with disgusting gags.

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and in trying hard to make it lighter and whimsical like TH book with all the snot/bird poo/chips humour it fails as a fairytale for children because the book does not use cheap modern gags as a substitute for whimsy.

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

so did Gloin and Oin, reader of "The Portents." All five of these were much better fleshed out than in the book or the animated version.

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Some of the dwarves who didn't get a look in for this film - all bar Thorin, Balin, Fili and Kili will i am assuming more attention in the next two films. Certainly one would expect Bombur to get more attention when they journey through Mirkwood bringing his character to life.

To be honest they should do as they are expanding upon the book and trying to add characterisation. Many feel this was achieved for the dwarves they focused on.

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

Yet, in the main, I agree with your point that the film suffers when Peter tries to substitute whimsy and simple charm with disgusting gags. Quote from AinurOlorin

This along with what you were quoting is how i feel. Something that i don't know if PJ feels he is doing is creating charm and whimsy by doing those things or does he feel he is just making gags?

Sometimes i think he knows, others i am not sure. Like you say some have to be for kids - after all they are part of the target demographic for book and film.

I feel he generally gets a tone of whimsy right but then just when he should leave it, he takes it one stage further and we are into excess as you say. For people who feel like this it is frustrating as you can see how it could have been better with just some tweaking.

P.S. Warm hugs of thanks to you and Elessar for a compliment I caught from the pair of you in another thread. I think highly of both your posting styles as well.

I agree HEAVILY with your last line. It really can be very annoying when you watch a scene that he has translated, and cannot help think that if he had just added a few minor touches. . . OR simply quit while he was ahead, it would have been great. I felt the latter with Radagast's spell, and with Tom using Bilbo for a noserag. The one was great until McCoy went crosseyed and damaged the serious tone. The other would actually have been kinda funny, if gross. . . untill we got the completely excessive closeup and extended attention to the overflow of mucus from the troll's nose. It was just too damned much. He sneezed on poor Bilbo, using him like the handkerchief the Hobbit so sorely missed, dirtying him like the ratty, makeshift one offered by Bofur. Yes, very funny. The lingering stream of mucous. . . NOT funny. Just nasty, and it wasn't required for the joke to work. Sometimes Peter is incorrigable, is part of the problem. lol

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Yet, in the main, I agree with your point that the film suffers when Peter tries to substitute whimsy and simple charm with disgusting gags. Quote from AinurOlorin

This along with what you were quoting is how i feel. Something that i don't know if PJ feels he is doing is creating charm and whimsy by doing those things or does he feel he is just making gags?

Sometimes i think he knows, others i am not sure. Like you say some have to be for kids - after all they are part of the target demographic for book and film.

I feel he generally gets a tone of whimsy right but then just when he should leave it, he takes it one stage further and we are into excess as you say. For people who feel like this it is frustrating as you can see how it could have been better with just some tweaking.

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

I didn't have an issue with the cross eyed bit but it does take away from the seriousness of that scene. My issue with the trolls is just too much snot. Either go with the snot rocket into the soup or bilbo with snot. Both is a bit much for me.

Tolkien, though, made no claims that all dwarves would get attention.
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PJ and team did, with plenty of pre-movie interviews, featurettes, and other material that specifically highlighted how every dwarf would be unique and individual; With that in mind, I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to expect more, and it doesn't surprise me that some were taken by surprise that some of the dwarves barely got to speak. Me, I wouldn't mind one bit the way they did it, had they just left out the hype.

Yes, it is more than we got in the book, true. However, it did not live up to the claims made before the film, imo. Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect more than we got (there's only a finite time to tell the story, after all), but these expectations were not built on nothing.

I could never really find a good way of describing it, but you hit the nail on the head.

I would say the good morning conversation, and the dwarves slowly entering Bag End are good examples of whimsy that apply to audiences young and old. I think the comedy feels forced when it is specifically aimed at children. Kid's are smart, and are usually underestimated with their sense of humor. I think the film could have achieved a child like sense of comedy and whimsy without snot, tables breaking, burping, etc..

It especially would have helped the film age well with children who saw it. When those kids grow up and see the movie, I'm sure a lot of them will realize how tasteless a lot of the humor comes across. However, if they would have focused on more clever situational comedy and dialogue, older viewers would be amused without the film going into any sort of "adult humor" territory. "You're love of the halflings leaf has clearly slowed your mind"

I never wanted to say it, but the amount of things that the production flat out made up really hurt the main narrative. Just think about how much more character development we could have gotten instead of a bunny sleds, rock em sock em stone giants, and Azog revenge plot. "You're love of the halflings leaf has clearly slowed your mind"

Absolutely. The excess damaged what I thought were otherwise quite good scenes.
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I am VERY thankful that the talk of The Great Goblin's throne doubling as an actual toilet were left out of the theatrical. Dame Edna did, to my mind, a very worthy job of portraying the petty, malicious, mocking and comically vain-glorious, self aggranizing behemoth, and it would have really detracted from the scene to have bathroom noises running in the background.

The troll scene, minus the overuse of snot, was actually fairly funny, and plausibly so, considering the nature of the persons involved. Even the Bilbo as Kleenex moment could have worked, as the commentary from Tom expressing concern over what he had sneezed was not entirely humourless. . . but the focus was shifted to the mucous itself, and thus the rest of the actual joke was thrown off because Peter wanted to revel in excretions.

Radagast's display of power in healing the animal and driving off the spiders is a very impressive moment, but it is marred by the poorly placed comic aspect of him rolling his eyes towards one another. The stick insect in the mouth bit seemed contrived and pointless. The film had already done a great job of conveying that he was a friend to animals. It would have been more subtle if the bug had just been crawling casually on his shoulder.

I think the movie will hold up well, and I think that overall it is a good film by most fair measurements and a great film by some. But Peter hurt it with his excess of pit humour, distracting from scenes that would have functioned better without it.

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It's also nice to see others are getting where i am coming from in terms of the comedy being almost there but just a little off.

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

I am sure this will have been discussed before but when judging the moments of jeopardy and how they are played out in the movies your point is key. Take two scenes which many have expressed disappointment at :-

1) The Stone Giants. They are canon so they should be in. We should see the spectacle realised and the jeopardy should be operatic rather than gritty. The reason it doesn't work for me is in the imagery and the execution.

2) Goblin Town. Ditto above but the reason it works for me is the imagery and atmosphere generated is spot on in my minds eye. Most important is Gandalfs' magic is core Tolkien. To analyize at an engineering real physical world level the balance of probability of any of the Dwarves getting cracked ribs or surviving at all is to me to miss the point.

We all know hundreds of people have spent thousands of hours working on these films so we get to experience middle earth again which so many appeared to want. But none of that works without the script having a heart a pulse at the centre that we relate to. If we do not think it has and we have not related to that with the first one we may as well not turn up for the second and third movie. If it has not moved us then all we are left with is critiques about changes, humour and the directors style of film making. It doesn't matter that people have different responces and people can go on discussing this (and will) until the end of the fourth age but when one is far in to a subject there is a real danger of losing the central point did I like the film or not enough to see it again or see more of them.

In general if one doesn't like AUJ expect not to like the rest. They are going to be about three characters journeys played out against PJ's vision of middle earth and how he sees to make a film for a global audience using the spine of the book and overlaying appendices material and gaining "inspiration" from the books they can not directly utilise.

In fact it would be interesting to hear from people who having seen the first movie have decided not to carry on because this re imagining does not do anything for them weighed down by so many faults. It is not the duty of devoted Tolkien fans to sit through more of this to be bitterly disappointed.

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Lost tension is inevitable is it not as this is a 'prequel'. Audiences know that Bilbo amongst many other characters in TH, survive the journey, so any real attempt by PJ and co, in fact any director or writer to, present us with scenes where Bilbo's life seem genuinely in peril, and full of dark forboding would seem fake. Almost every member of any cinema in the world watching AUJ knows that Bilbo doesn't get eaten by Trolls, or becomes lunch for Gollum.

In fact, AUJ has left those without knowledge of the book with a sense of safety and security, something some critics have fallen for too bemoaning the fact that no one will die in The Hobbit films and everyone will live happily ever after...

For one thing I LOVED the way that scene opened. A proper beginning to help make amends for all the scenes of Gandalf putting forth his power in Fellowship that were left out of that movie (his battle with The Nine, his routing of the Wargs in the mountain pass etc.). Yet, I really like your take on it. Almost that that initial blast of power was the initiation of some greater, divine but subtle magic, one ushering something of the "strange good fortune" which Saruman noted attended The Gray Messenger. In the light of such an enchantment, the improbable good luck of the dwarves for the remainder of the scene seems much more appropriate.

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2) Goblin Town. Ditto above but the reason it works for me is the imagery and atmosphere generated is spot on in my minds eye. Most important is Gandalfs' magic is core Tolkien. To analyize at an engineering real physical world level the balance of probability of any of the Dwarves getting cracked ribs or surviving at all is to me to miss the point.

In Reply To

Lost tension is inevitable is it not as this is a 'prequel'. Audiences know that Bilbo amongst many other characters in TH, survive the journey, so any real attempt by PJ and co, in fact any director or writer to, present us with scenes where Bilbo's life seem genuinely in peril, and full of dark forboding would seem fake. Almost every member of any cinema in the world watching AUJ knows that Bilbo doesn't get eaten by Trolls, or becomes lunch for Gollum.

In fact, AUJ has left those without knowledge of the book with a sense of safety and security, something some critics have fallen for too bemoaning the fact that no one will die in The Hobbit films and everyone will live happily ever after...

"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"

"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."

One of the critiques of fairie is it always ends "and they all end happily ever after". It is a lot of escapist fluff disconnected from the real world.What makes Tolkien's work special is it is infused with the notion that the gods are closer in but that whilst they will drive the winds of fate at a pinch there are still very real consequences of fulfilling the vision of the music.Gandalf exhorts the Dwarves to get up and fight and they are away off. We must make the effort find our own personal courage have faith and then fate will come forth and weave its enchantment. So is this cheating, Bilbo and therefore Frodo were chosen and they rose to the challenge and succeeded but at a terrible cost (they lost the most precious of all commodities the chance to live a simple and straight forward life) for which they were granted release. In summary they were chosen, and found and were given strength, but they lost so much in the journey.Gandalf when all was over and he returned to Aman would it have been a triumphant return all (or perhaps all Radagast ?) his fellow Istari fell by the way side.Thorin and Balin driven by duty and a certain vanity (Thror and Thrain) that Aule's children were susceptible to, attempted to reclaim what they considered there's by right with tragic consequences.No there are moments on the journey when the higher spirits, that Merry glimpsed, intervene but they allow the story that is already written to take its course, involving sacrifice and loss, just as we and many of Tolkien's colleagues suffer such things .

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For one thing I LOVED the way that scene opened. A proper beginning to help make amends for all the scenes of Gandalf putting forth his power in Fellowship that were left out of that movie (his battle with The Nine, his routing of the Wargs in the mountain pass etc.). Yet, I really like your take on it. Almost that that initial blast of power was the initiation of some greater, divine but subtle magic, one ushering something of the "strange good fortune" which Saruman noted attended The Gray Messenger. In the light of such an enchantment, the improbable good luck of the dwarves for the remainder of the scene seems much more appropriate.

In Reply To

2) Goblin Town. Ditto above but the reason it works for me is the imagery and atmosphere generated is spot on in my minds eye. Most important is Gandalfs' magic is core Tolkien. To analyize at an engineering real physical world level the balance of probability of any of the Dwarves getting cracked ribs or surviving at all is to me to miss the point.

> "One of the critiques of fairie is it always ends 'and they all end happily ever after.' It is a lot of escapist fluff disconnected from the real world."

And some years hence, this unbalanced fad of darkness will be criticized by a popular movement that won't understand how we could have willingly cast aside our ability to appreciate fantasy and ideals for its worth in positive thought; why we chose to keep ourselves on a dark path of pessimism instead of imagining something better for ourselves. What we've done in our jealousy of what we hold to be more perfect than ourselves has led to the deconstruction and humanization of our superheroes. We have intentionally destroyed the integrity of what's best about us in favor of what's worst for our own petty amusement and to elevate ourselves at their expense. It's a shame. The sooner we get back to the fairy tales, the better. They are there for a reason, just as real life is there for a reason. Balance.

Waaaah, so many posts! I read the first two pages and there have a lot of good points mentioned but I just can't read them all.

I'll list my two cents.

Erebor: I understand that, for the sake of knowing what exactly the motive of the dwarves' was all about, this needed to be covered. But did it really need to be that extensive? Granted watching it the second time around, it made more sense to the overall cohesiveness of the story, but I felt like it stole a lot of energy and charm from what we're next introduced to, which is The Shire and our main character.

Azog: God, don't even get me started on Azog. No. Just no. Shoehorned and unnecessary conflict that completely sucked away at any light-heartedness that the story could have had. Why bring up Moria into this? Was it to add to Thorin's character? Why force epicness into something that's not SUPPOSED to be epic? What's worse, I have a feeling that this blue guy and his army of CGI friends (which, to me, feel like the overly-exagerated bad guys from 300 more than anything else) are going to be following Bilbo and Co. for the next two movies, which will only add more unnecesary tension all throughout. Battle of the Six Armies, anyone?

Rivendell: Ah, Rivendell. If it wasn't for the breathtaking views and the cool insight into Elvish culture (which was missed in the LOTR films because of the context), I probably would have fallen asleep during this whole scene, as most of my non-Tolkien fan friends almost did. The council served as nothing more than unnecessary ravel about something that neither the book speaks about nor does the audience care for, if that's what they were going for. Galadriel (as much as I love her character) was brought in to walk around in circles, look pretty and seem **mysterious**. Blah. And Saruman, what did they do to you? Also, was I the only who noticed how sappy and not subtle Gandalf's line was when talking about his reasons for choosing Bilbo? What's ironic was that this scene was dragged out to an extent where even the dwarves decided to leave early.

Goblin King: It felt awkward. It felt uncomfortable. Even annoying. It might have just been a mistake in casting, but I didn't enjoy watching him.

I'm not going to say this was a bad movie, because it wasn't. But a whole lot of editing would have done it very very good. I'm hoping (against hope?) that the next movies are better and that they don't repeat the same mistakes, but I stumbled upon an article explaining that Tauriel/Kili are going to be a thing now and I'm scared. Hopefully, if anything, it will be just a humorous scene and that's it.